Lost trumpet

THE LOST TRUMPET
49
I remembered Huebsch and Marrot then. I sat up.
“Tell them I will be down in less.”
Dressing, my mind was firm in my resolve of the
previous evening. A month at Abu Zabal in company
with an incarnation of Joshua and a clipped avatar
of Spartacus—I had sooner go back to Russia !
Below, I found them sitting in an aged Darracq,
Huebsch at the wheel, the corn-cob pipe fast-gripped
between his jaws, Marrot lolling in the rear seat,
his feet upended on the prone girders of the hood.
I went out of the doorway and was greeted by them
and roar of the engine as it leapt to asthmatic life
under the force of the self-starter.
“Jump in, Colonel. Guess we want you to pilot
us through the Ministry of the Interior.”
“But—” I was about to make my resignation.
Huebsch shook a worried head.
“Jump in. I can’t hold her much longer. . . .
This is the first time I’ve driven an auto.”
So I guessed. We missed dismemberment of
Nicolaos’s eldest boy by a hair’s breadth, almost
scraped a yawning and early waiter from the steps
of Heliopolis House Hotel, yammered wildly amid
the ruts of the tram-tracks and then found ourselves
headed erratically for Cairo.
I had gained the rear seat by Marrot’s side. Now
he was sitting upright, shouting directions to the
gigantic worriedness of Huebsch. His hair was on
end, his pale face flushed. He gripped me at one
particularly lunatic lurch of the vehicle.
“Stick it. . . . This is Huebsch’s first go, but
D